Iraq crisis: on the frontline of the battle against Isis insurgents

Ruth Sherlock reports from near Tal Afar, a city that was once the
emblem of US military success in Iraq, now fallen into the hands of Saddam's
men

By Ruth Sherlock, video by Sam Tarling

7:52AM BST 18 Jun 2014

Tal Afar was once the emblem of US military success in Iraq - the city where American forces defeated their adversaries twice. First they drove out the army of Saddam Hussein, and later the Islamist militants who rose up against the occupation.

Less than a decade later, the two US foes have joined forcesto seize back Tal Afar, and the machine guns and armoured vehicles that American troops left behind to defend its new-found freedom are being used by the very insurgents they sought to defeat.

Eight miles from Tal Afar, Kurdish peshmerga forcesare now protecting the area which marks the edge of the territory that Isis now controls.

Dozens of peshmerga troops, heavily armed with rifles and machine guns mounted on pick up trucks, manned the road. They waved down cars coming from Tal Afar and, afraid of suicide bombers, pointed their guns at the drivers, their fingers on the triggers if they failed to stop.

The arrival of the jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham in northern Iraq has brought on sectarian insurgency anew, and loyalists to the late Saddam Hussein have once again picked up their arms to fight.

On Sunday, Isis jihadists, backed by local Baathist remnants from Saddam’s old regime, overran Tal Afar, causing the exodus of most of the city’s Shia community.

“It is Baathists from Tal Afar who enabled Isis to take over the town. They have a strong presence and are very well organised,” said one senior Iraqi intelligence officer from the area. “This is the return of Saddam’s men.”